


Break-even

by Empy (Empyreus)



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Mutual Masturbation, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Sibling Incest, Teasing, Whump, implied soulmarks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-19 04:00:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22004842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Empyreus/pseuds/Empy
Summary: Written for Val_Creative for the 2019 round of LotR SeSa. I didn't quite manage to use the prompt you provided, but hopefully this is close enough. :)Set in the autumn before the Company sets out.
Relationships: Fíli/Kíli (Tolkien)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 28
Collections: Lord of the Rings Secret Santa 2019





	Break-even

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Val_Creative](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Val_Creative/gifts).



> Written for Val_Creative for the 2019 round of LotR SeSa. I didn't quite manage to use the prompt you provided, but hopefully this is close enough. :)
> 
> Set in the autumn before the Company sets out.

His leg was broken, he was quite sure of it. When he moved, when he even so much as breathed, it hurt like he'd been speared with a red-hot poker. What irony that he had fallen into a pit just like a harried stag when he was the hunter setting out to check his snares. One moment he had been running, his feet sure even on the slick autumn leaves, and in the next, the ground had disappeared from under his feet. He had come down hard, catching his right leg on a sharp rock at the bottom of a hollow.

There was barely enough light to see by and dusk was already falling, but he could see his bow snagged on a jutting root some two feet off the ground and he noted with relief that it seemed to be unharmed. It would have been insult added to injury if he had broken his weapon on the very first day of a hunt. 

Fili's voice floated down to him from somewhere very high up. "Kili! Kili, where are you?" There was a startled note to it, sharper than he remembered hearing for some time. 

"Down here!" he shouted, belatedly remembering all Dwalin's dire warnings about the wargs and the orcs and all manner of worse things with sharp ears and sharper teeth that might lurk in the woods fringing the Blue Mountains. He winced, clenching his teeth, then relaxed. What use was fretting about the noise now when he'd already given voice to his shout? 

Tufts of half-frozen grass mixed with clods of sandy earth tumbled down, some striking his shoulders. He craned his head, trying to see Fili but finding the high walls of the hollow he was lying in obscured the view almost entirely. He could see the dark sky and the drooping branches of the tall firs, but little else.

Then, suddenly, Fili came skidding down the steep bank across from him, coming up nimbly on his feet as soon as they touched the bottom.

"Are you all right?" asked Fili, looking him over and already reaching his arm out to help him up. 

Waving him off, Kili shifted where he lay. "It looks worse than it is. Let me catch my breath."

Fili opened his mouth, seeming to want to voice a protest, then thought better of it and looked around instead, taking in the hollow they were in. It was the better of ten feet deep, shaped almost like an inverted bell, and shot through with the roots of the trees that still stood like immense sentries in the gathering darkness. Kili tried to follow the line of Fili's gaze, looking for some way up or out.

"There is a cave here, or a rock-walled den at the very least," said Fili suddenly, his voice both surprised and relieved. "And though it is low and quite shallow, it is dry. We should use it for shelter this night."

Kili opened his mouth to protest, having already longingly thought of the lean-to shelters he knew were dotted through the forest, then thought better of it. His leg already ached enough to give him a headache, and the thought of attempting to trek out of the woods in the dark made him wince. "Better than nothing, I suppose," he said, trying to keep the pain out of his voice.

Fili's concerned frown told him his ruse had not been successful. "Can you walk?"

He tried, managing to get to his feet with some effort and with his teeth gritted. When he settled his hand on his injured thigh, he could feel a sticky patch he didn't need to look at to know it was blood. _But I can stand on it,_ he told himself, _so it cannot be broken. Else my knee would have buckled._ "After a fashion," he said, realizing that even if he managed to convince his brother than his injury was slighter than it truly was, he could not climb out of the hollow in his current state.

Fili slung Kili's arm across his shoulders, leaning forward to shift his weight a little.

"Are you going to sweep me up and carry me across the threshold?" asked Kili, feeling laughter bubble up in his chest at the absurdity of the mental image. 

"Are you expecting a wedding night if I do?"

He boxed Fili in the ribs with his free hand. "Do you think I would take such an uncouth fool as a groom? And one without proper gifts to give me? No jewels, not even a sword."

Fili's grin remained undimmed. "Given how many ways you have let me take you already, I find that protest unconvincing." He slipped his other arm around Kili's waist to steady him. "Duck your head. I know your skull is thick, but one wound is quite enough."

The boulders forming the walls of the cave were surprisingly flat, affording excellent shelter from the restless wind that had picked up as soon as the sun had set entirely. Fili busied himself with finding wood for a fire, while Kili set to making a makeshift firepit, hollowing it out with the heel of his boot. The familiar motions of fire-building soothed him and took his mind off the pain momentarily.

When the fire was lit, the warmth was like a draught of Dori's sloe brandy, creeping through him slowly. He stretched both his legs out as he leaned back with a sigh, closing his eyes, only to open them again when Fili spoke.

"We need to look at your leg. Clearly it is more than a mere bruise."

He opened his mouth to protest, but knew that Fili was right. The blood was a clear enough sign, and Fili was perceptive enough to notice it before long.

Fili's brow wrinkled as he looked at the wound. "The edges are clean, but it is deep. It was your good fortune the stone was so sharp and the blow glancing, I suppose. Better a cut than a broken bone."

Taking out a cup from his pack, he filled it with spring water from the waterskins they had filled only that morning as they made their way from the foot of the mountains into the deep forest. Pulling the torn edges of the tear in Kili's breeches open wider, he let a thin trickle of water wash the worst of the sand and blood out of the wound.

"It should be sewn up," said Fili, squinting a little in the low light. "So it heals better. But I have neither the tools nor the skill."

"It might heal on its own," said Kili, surreptitiously scooting away a little, ill at ease by the very thought of stitches in his flesh. "Surely just binding it would be enough?" He was already looking through his pack for the linen bag he used for trap wires. 

Wrapping the linen around Kili's thigh, Fili wound trap-wire firmly around it to further secure it. "Not the prey I had thought to catch with this, but I suppose it shall suffice," he said, but there was a worried undercurrent to his levity. "To think it came to this when we so confidently told Dwalin we would do well on our own as we have before."

"You are the one who sent me off on the wrong path," groused Kili, pushing aside the little voice in his mind pointing out that he had been the one setting off at a run and not minding the terrain in the fading light.

"And you are the one who did not think to see where he was going. I would not be surprised if I found you with an arrow in your leg one day, Kili." The low light of the fire was bright enough to let Kili catch the good-humoured glitter in Fili's eyes, and he relaxed a little. "And I will not patch that for you." 

Fili grinned, but the grin suddenly turned into a pained wince.

"Fili? What is it?" Kili could feel his heart begin to race. 

"Nothing," said Fili, replying all too fast. "Nothing at all. A twinge." His fingers nervously pressed against his side, and Kili realized it was just over the birthmark that had its mirror image on his own skin. The curious red arrowhead that had been there since he was born. "A pulled muscle, probably, from having to haul you around like a sack of ore."

Kili huffed, pushing aside the worried little flutter that his heart still insisted on doing. "What a cold and inconstant heart you have. But a moment ago, you were playing the concerned nursemaid." He stretched his unharmed leg out, feeling it protest the hard ground he was sitting on and the cold that the fire and the shelter of the cave could not quite keep away. Though their bedrolls were well-stuffed and the fire blazing comfortably, the raw autumn chill was threading into his very bones.

"There is time for that yet," said Fili, patting his own bedroll. "Come here. Being stiff with cold will do nothing to ease the pain, and two bodies may warm each other better than a fire may."

Kili grinned, holding up a finger. " _That_ is far more to my taste."

Moving around, trying to find a comfortable position without getting too close to the fire, he gave a sigh of contentment as Fili wrapped his arms around him and rested his chin in the crook between Kili's neck and shoulder. 

"One of us has to stay awake to keep the fire going," he said, looking over at the now rather meagre-looking bundle of branches Fili had brought into the cave. The snapping of the fire gave away how resinous the wood was, but fortunately the smoke trailed out instead of further into the cave. He tried not to think of it possibly luring anything to them.

"We'll take turns," said Fili, propping himself up on one elbow. "You can sleep first. 

He slept restlessly, dreams blending into each other, before slowly waking up in a pleasant haze. He was warm and comfortable, pressed up against Fili like on so many mornings, and... well, Fili's hand slipped into his breeches had certainly also been a feature of many pleasant mornings. 

Cracking one eye open, he looked up at Fili. "You certainly know how to wake me up."

Fili laughed. "It is faster than anything else. I could make some remark about how your cock is quicker than your hea--" His comment was cut short as Kili elbowed him. "Or I could stop, seeing as my kind attempts are met with violence."

"I intended to stop your mouth, not your hand." He didn't bother to try hiding his smirk.

There was a pause, long enough to make him wonder if it was mere teasing or marking the end. Then Fili resumed, leaning down to whisper teasingly into his ear.

"Consider this more of a debt than a favour." There was an undercurrent of amusement taking any edge off the statement immediately.

His breath was a flutter in the back of his throat. Each movement jostled his sore leg and made him wince, but he could not stop now, could not stop his hips from moving and his blood from beating in his ears like a wild drum. And then, oh then, Fili set his free hand on his hip to still him, stopping the movement of his fingers at the same time. 

"What are you doing?" he hissed, trying to move to relieve the pressure. It would take so little, so very little. He pushed at Fili's wrist, warring between trying to pry Fili's hand off and simply slipping his own hand inside his breeches to take care of matters. 

"I realized that you are convalescing and should rest. And yet here you are, squirming fit to make your wound worse."

"If you only let me have what I want, I shall stop squirming immediately," he said, his voice ragged enough to give away his frustration. "Surely this starting and stopping is as taxing as what I ask for."

"Ask nicely." Fili's voice was unbearably smug to his ears.

Keeping silent, he turned in the embrace and simply tucked his fingers into Fili's belt, pulling him a little closer before switching hands to be able to slip his hand inside Fili's breeches. There was a surprised little sound from Fili, something that turned into a breathy little chuckle as Kili wrapped his fingers around his cock. 

"So you speak with your fingers now?" asked Fili, but made no move to break Kili's hold. "You must help me understand what you are saying." 

Moving closer, leaning his forehead against Fili's, he let the movements of his hand punctuate his words. "Let me repay my debt even as I incur more." He could feel Fili's breath on his skin, feel it grow choppier the faster his hand moved. After a pause that felt like years, Fili's hand resumed its own motion, the fingers clenching just a little tighter when Kili set a teasing counter-rhythm.

He could feel familiar pressure building, could feel his strokes grow a little uneven and careless, but at the same time, he tried to hold back. It was a challenge, but he was set on teaching Fili a lesson about teasing. He could both see and feel Fili's chest rising and falling rapidly, could feel their pulse beats twinned as the pace of the strokes increased.

Finally, the world simply broke apart into sparks. He gasped, his back arching as pleasure rolled through him, and for a moment he forgot both the cold and the hard ground under them.

When he opened his eyes again, he saw Fili lying flat on his back as he tried to catch his breath. Kili propped himself up on one elbow, setting his palm on Fili's chest for a moment before patting it. 

"Let us say we have now broken even, brother."

[END]


End file.
